“It’s not a surprise that there is a potential transaction out there,” says Ben Thypin, director of market analysis for New York-based research firm Real Capital Analytics. “That said, it’s uncertain whether this will end up being the winning transaction. The sellers that are selling, Bank of America and Barclay’s, are financial sellers. So one would expect a financial buyer to take their place. Equity is an operator.”

But ultimately, no one knows when the situation will be settled. “For a long time, people have been talking about it eventually getting sold,” Thypin says. “They’ve been selling assets or refinancing assets in preparation for that. There’s still that uncertainty about when and how this will get resolved. At the very least, it shows the recapitalization process has begun in earnest.”

Ben Carlos Thypin

I am currently the co-founder of Quantierra, the world's first data driven real estate brokerage and investment manager. In my former life as Director of Market Analysis at Real Capital Analytics, I worked with press outlets large and small to provide them with great data and insightful commentary. Here are some of the results of this collaboration. For the rest, please check out the News Archive.